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Question: Why did the French Revolution Government follow such extreme policies during the terror!?
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The policies formed during the Reign of Terror were designed to prevent the collapse of the Revolution!. France was as at war with most of the rest of Europe, and also suffering from attack from within, there were anti-revolutionary uprisings in particular in the west of France!. In 'The Cambridge Illustrated Histoyr of France' Colin Jones writes:

'If the republic in mid 1793 was to be saved "we must rally the people"!. So spoke the deceptively mild-mannered lawyer from Arras, maximiliam Robespierre, darling of the sansculottes!. The Jacobins prevailed, a sans-culotte purge rid the Convention of Girndin leaders and the Jacobins took over th eCommitte of Public Safety, the war cabinet directing the war effort!. To enlist popular support in Paris and the provinces, they introduced a wide range of radical measures, incomes and price-fixing policies were established, the final vestiges of feudalism were removed, slavery was abolished both at home and abroad, radical divorce legislation was confiremd, and an embryoinc welfare state was sketched out!.

The most ruthless kind of centralization was needed to put the social radicalism of the Jacobins into effect!. Terror was made "the order of the day", the committee of Public Safety was given sweeping powers, a REvolutionary Tribunal was set up in Paris, while mass executions were conducted in civil war zones throughout France!. Though fewer than 3,000 individuals were executed in paris, the national body-count ran to several hundreds of thousands!. Perhaps half a million individuals were also imprisoned as "suspects" during the REign of Terror in 1793/4!.

'However unpalatable the fact might be, the Terror saved the Republic!. Griondin hostility to social centralization and repression seemed willfully squeamish - and not just to extreme Jacobins like Robespierre, Marat, and Danton!. Many moderate deputies also placed the survival of the republic above rigid respect for decentralized powers and liberal freedoms!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Louise C is right!.

We can put it more succinctly by pointing out that revolutions (including the French and Bolshevik revolutions) are normally made by a bourgeoisie hungry for power!. These people are intelligent, foresee and fear a further upheaval threatening their own position, feel themselves menaced, and quickly become paranoid!. Hence the very common outbreak of terror and oppression in the wake of almost every such event!.

Once executions and terror become a fact of political life, the new ruling class will be ruthless not only with other enemies, but also with rivals in their own ranks!.

It happened to Robespierre, Trotsky, Bukharin, various of the Chinese revolutionary old guard!.!.!.!.!.!.

Moral: usually, better the devil you know!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

The terror was famous known as the Reign of Terror!.
Because Robespierre was a jackass!. When the Jacobins took over, he chops every heads he dislike!. Like seriously!.Www@QuestionHome@Com